"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Life is painful for the Tumblr feminist. Alone with her laptop, everything she encounters in her online existence tells her that males are stupid, dangerous and violent. Emotionally immersed in an estrogen-filled echo chamber of Internet activism, she finds feminists eager to offer sisterhood and solidarity — “You are not alone!” — along with constant confirmation of her worst fears and doubts about men. Surrounding herself with True Believers in this digital environment enables the young seeker to obtain “feminist consciousness,” which means learning “to see oneself as a victim” as Professor Sandra Bartky explained. Convinced that she is oppressed by the patriarchy, she begins to behold the world through warped lenses, seeing sexism in ordinary behavior and suspiciously scrutinizing every man she meets for evidence of the misogyny she is certain must be lurking inside him.

As she begins her consciousness-raising journey, we often find the young feminist naïvely wondering why everyone doesn’t support this movement. “What’s wrong with gender equality?” she asks. “Why don’t guys understand this? Why do these ignorant people keep saying feminism is against men?” One of her favorite actresses, like that girl from the Harry Potter movies, makes a pro-feminist statement full of bland slogans and quasi-inspirational gush suitable for a Hallmark greeting card, and the teenager on Tumblr is mystified that anyone could possibly be less enthusiastic than she is.

We watch with amusement (or dismay) the progress of the young Tumblrina’s feminism over time, as she voyages farther and farther into this ideological sea. She becomes increasingly exasperated that the people who surround her in real life — parents and peers, family and friends — just don’t get it. In early June, “Dust and Shadows” was perplexed and outraged by this:

We smile at her apparent belief that, by the inclusion of additional exclamation points, she could overcome the doubters. She has committed herself to feminism because, hey, if Emma Watson says it’s cool, it must be awesome. It is impossible for her to comprehend that skeptics and critics of feminism have made a more accurate appraisal of the movement and its ideology. Adults who have watched the feminist movement for decades have their own reasons for rejecting it, even if they may not be able to articulate these reasons except by sarcastic jests. For example, we find that as a Yale University sophomore, the future famous “rape culture” crusader Alexandra Brodsky began a letter to the student newspaper by remarking that “my conservative dad calls me Comrade Brodsky” because she voted for Obama in 2008.

Most people who “actually say they are anti-feminist” — with or without Triple!!! Exclamation!!! Points!!! — have never bothered to devote much time to the study of the philosophy they reject. That is to say, anti-feminists (male or female) tend to be conservatives or libertarians who recognize feminism as a movement of the Left, and reject it categorically. Once you recognize certain common patterns about these kinds of movements (e.g., the “Occupy” protests of 2011), and develop a general dislike of radical egalitarianism, the rest is just details.

You’re a conservative and. once you know that the people supporting a particular movement are left-wing Democrats, your gut-hunch reaction is to oppose that movement. Your instinctive conservatism, however, does not supply you with the kind of information and arguments you need to explain to your daughter (who is too young to know what you know) why she should be skeptical toward feminist ideology. Maybe you should buy my book and maybe, if you ask your daughter to read a few recent posts in the “Sex Trouble” series, you could intellectually inoculate her against this dangerous radical virus.

Shameless self-promotion aside (this is a capitalist blog), there is a legitimate danger that adults who do not understand feminism will find themselves unprepared to effectively oppose feminism. This anti-male movement, having entrenched itself in the academic Feminist-Industrial Complex of university Women’s Studies programs, is currently in the midst of a Zombie Apocalypse resurgence. Everywhere we turn, we encounter wild-eyed fanatics ranting about “objectification” and “heteropatriarchy” and, of course, RAPE!RAPE!RAPE!

Why would anyone say such hateful things? Because inside the feminist echo chamber, this is all she ever hears and she becomes convinced that every man she meets is part of a conspiracy to oppress her, to discriminate against her, to deprive her of her rights, to rape her. She succumbs to a paranoid delusion — Fear and Loathing of the Penis!

It’s as if a clock begins ticking the minute she starts talking about “equality.” Soon she’ll be on Tumblr reblogging her intention to “Smash Patriarchy” or deliriously ranting on Twitter about her joy in making “heterosexual men cry.” Because dissent is forbidden on the contemporary campus and feminism’s critics are demonized as misogynists and “rape apologists,” the young feminist never confronts an informed and articulate skeptic of the movement. So it is with “Dust and Shadows,” the Tumblr blogger who in early June used Triple!! Exclamation!!! Points!!! to express her frustration that anyone could be against feminism. Scarcely three weeks after that post, however, the same young feminist had apparently surrendered to anti-male paranoia:

Oh, an island? You want to have an all-female island? A gynocracy ruled by your favorite feminist celebrities, a utopia where you will “be safe and happy,” nevermore to worry about all the “dangerous” men out there?

Yes, that island is legendary. Many feminists have made that metaphorical voyage because, as the late Professor Joyce Trebilcot explained, patriarchy “depends on the ability of men to control women through heterosexuality.” Once she is convinced that “male supremacy” makes every man her oppressor, how can a feminist ever respect a man or trust a man? If trust and respect are impossible, then how can any feminist ever be expected to love a man? She began her journey ignorantly parroting slogans about “equality” and “rights” and did not realize what the movement would ultimately require of her.

Bon voyage and farewell! Depart! Set sail! Let no man delay or hinder you as you board the ship bound across the Mytilini Strait to that fabled place near the coast of Asia Minor! Just as soon as a young woman decides she is a victim of male oppression, she should buy a one-way ticket to that Aegean isle. If ever any man loved her, his love was wasted, for once she reached “feminist consciousness,” she could feel nothing but horror and contempt for him. Thus, like so many others before her, she will “demonstrate life outside the male power structure.” The young feminist may plan her trip and anticipate the sites she’ll see when she arrives Lesbos. Yet this is not the last stop on her journey.

They left behind no children to mourn their deaths, and it is to be doubted many men ever missed them. So when someday the young feminist is united with her glorious predecessors beyond the grave, she will congratulate them on their success. Where they are now, no mortal man may oppress them, and everyone is equal in Hell.

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85 Responses to “Feminist Tumblr: Dreaming of Their Journey Across the Mytilini Strait”

trangbang68 July 5th, 2015 @ 3:16 pm

I would say in the case of male homosexuality, the lack of sound male role models, a feminized culture and lust and porn on steroids is a factor.
I have noticed that a number of lesbians I have met had a common causal factor: they were sexually abused by adult males as children.

“You’re not men’s equals,” he replied, and walked away as her too tender heart shuddered and stopped.

Art Deco July 5th, 2015 @ 4:48 pm

Every year, about 90,000 students take at least one class in Women’s Studies (or Gender Studies, or Sexuality Studies, etc.).

I hear you. The thing is, the number of student-courses followed each academic year exceeds 90,000,000. Women’s studies is corrupting. It’s also a tiny sliver of the curriculum.

As for the ‘rape culture’ nonsense, sure it’s driven by the women’s studies crew. It would be perfectly inconsequential were it not promoted by the student affairs apparat and the superordinate administration. The student affairs apparat is chock-a-block with people with MEd. degrees, not women’s studies marks. College presidents are commonly professors who’ve abandoned their research for institutional politicking.

Art Deco July 5th, 2015 @ 4:56 pm

I have noticed that a number of lesbians I have met had a common causal
factor: they were sexually abused by adult males as children.

Susan Sontag once explained her lesbianism thus: she turned 40 and she was just getting better offers from women than from men. I’ve known one woman who fit this to a T and another who was a variant of this: for unfathomable reasons she was comprehensively rejected by her male peers, and the lesbian on the floor moved into the breach. A third woman I’ve know just seemed alienated from her femininity and seemed to grow moreso as she slid into the lesbian subculture.

Art Deco July 5th, 2015 @ 5:00 pm

The psychiatrist Jeffrey Satinover offered his own hypothesis a number of years ago (and said that little serious research was being done on the question). He said there is a complex of psychological characteristics which can be shown to have a heritable component (e.g. tendencies toward anxiety, intelligence, and aestheticism). He offered that that was the field you start out with, and then it gets planted and cultivated by events: father-son trouble most prominently, trouble between brothers, trouble with peers, and accidents of personal history.

Or the trash needs to be taken out, or a bug needs killing, or a window sticks, or something heavy needs to be moved, or…

ShoutsAtTV July 5th, 2015 @ 6:00 pm

EGAD!!! Why didn’t we think of this before? We could have prevented prohibition!

RichFader July 5th, 2015 @ 6:10 pm

“All aboard the Express Mytilini…”

(HT and apologies to Love and Rockets)

DeadMessenger July 5th, 2015 @ 8:33 pm

But…but…that’s where I put cute pictures of my cats!

And also pictures of trucks with giant spines in the beds that I see around town, like this one.

DeadMessenger July 5th, 2015 @ 8:44 pm

I’d shoot a rapist with this! With Hello Kitty tipped bullets!

Daniel Freeman July 5th, 2015 @ 9:57 pm

You’re not wrong about Oregon. I once met a young woman from a Eugene lesbian commune.

We were in New Mexico.

Pamela _Anderson July 5th, 2015 @ 11:51 pm

Buffalobob

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Your point is well taken, but I was thinking specifically of the Feminists of Tumblr, princesses who are about 20 years old on average, along with the middle aged academic hags who inspire them. (Young and hardy Sarah Palin types on Tumblr do exist, but they are exceedingly rare, they’re not really feminists and they’re certainly not lesbians.)

I’d be willing to bet that most of Feminist Tumblr Island would be dying of privation within a few short weeks. More than a mile or two from the loading docks, probably much sooner than that.

Robert What? July 6th, 2015 @ 1:58 am

It is actually quite sad for many of these young, naive women. They are going to end up old and alone with no one to care for and no one to care for them. It is criminal.

We inoculated our daughters from that stuff by doing really radical things like not having them reared by day care workers, by taking them to Mass on Sundays, by not getting stoned or stinking drunk ourselves, by getting married before they were conceived, and staying married for the past 36 years, one month and 17 days. They wound up both being graduated from school, never being brought home by the cops, not getting knocked up, and both joining the Army.

The deep, dark secret to successful parenting: doing things the right way, rather than having to make excuses for why you did things the wrong way. Sure makes life simpler.

I would say in the case of male homosexuality, the lack of sound male role models, a feminized culture and lust and porn on steroids is a factor.

Or maybe it’s guys who find women hard to put up with, and figure that once they can get past sucking their first dick, it’ll all be good?

Yes, of course I denounce myself!

trangbang68 July 6th, 2015 @ 8:15 am

Not that part A is anything to embrace but said gayfers still have to deal with the posterior proclivities of the lifestyle which it would seem to this flaming breeder to be rather traumatic. Rectum, darn near killed him.

trangbang68 July 6th, 2015 @ 8:22 am

To add a little levity to this weighty cultural drama, I read an anecdote in a book of essays by Wendell Berry this morning.
Ken Kesey went in a public restroom and read this graffiti:
“My mother made me a homosexual”
Underneath, someone wrote:
“If I give her some yarn, will she make me one?”
Actually some truth in that joke. Liberals have found out that chinchillas are rare, ferrets are stinky and bite and adopting black kids from Africa as accessories is a long commitment. So hey, what better pet than having a witty homosexual or two in your circle?

trangbang68 July 6th, 2015 @ 8:24 am

If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear a dental dam and a butt plug…

One would think that, for a true feminist, the notion that if a man can get his hands dirty to get a job done, then so can she.

Jason Lee July 6th, 2015 @ 7:35 pm

Feminists are vying for supremacy, not dirty jobs. But even if feminists WANTED to do the dirty jobs that keep civilization running, there’s no way they’d be able to handle it with out help from the Y-chromosome club:

Has a self-denunciation ever been denied and revoked at TOM? If not, it’s about time!

theoldsargesays July 6th, 2015 @ 9:45 pm

What you did to get through school took hard work and dedication.
A man doing the same would be accused of feminists of keeping two women out of jobs while depriving a third of an education.
:-

Daniel Freeman July 6th, 2015 @ 10:15 pm

She was a public high school teacher. I once read a confessional by a retired webcam stripper who was the only currency earner in her nudist commune — but they had men, natch.

DeadMessenger July 6th, 2015 @ 11:57 pm

Actually in my day, I was angrily accused of keeping men out of jobs. 🙂
You can’t win for losin’, Sarge.

theoldsargesays July 7th, 2015 @ 12:04 am

By MRA’s?
Lol….just reading an article over at The Federalist and these Men’s Rights Activists crack me up. They’re like womyn with…well…ahem.
It’s as someone said here a few weeks ago- the decomposition of America.

Men, on average, are stronger than women, but women can be strong enough to be plumbers and sparktricians and HVAC technicians and finish carpenters and a whole bunch of other traditionally male trades; the problem is that so very few of them try.

I have counseled more than a few women who complained that there weren’t any jobs out there for which they could qualify that paid more than minimum wage, to get a commercial driver’s license; there were always openings to drive a dump truck. I’ve had female concrete mixer drivers, and they were pretty much just like the men: some good ones and some poor ones.

Back in 1987, I was working at a plant in the north end of Newport News, when Jane came in and said that her load was too wet. Since it was a central mix plant, drying up a load is a bit harder than at a dry batch plant, so I told her to pull over by the warehouse and I’d throw 5 bags of cement in it. I put a 94 lb bag of portland cement on my shoulder, and climbed up the ladder — not an easy thing, because the ladder on her truck actually leaned outward a bit — and emptied the bag into the hopper of the truck. When I got down, Jane had a 94 lb bag on her shoulder, climbed the ladder, and added it. In the end, I did three and she did two, and the only reason I did more was because it was an odd number of bags. And Jane was not some horse of a woman, but a real babe. (She was a bit taller than average, but not a lot.)

The most important component of strength and ability is the willingness to try.

SHAMELESS CAPITALISM

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